“I used to read stories about men walking into kindergartens with automatic weapons, and I would think, that’s America, or that’s Chechnya: that will never happen here. And now I fear that our safe little world is changing, and such a thing can and will happen here, and I shall be forced to put armed guards at the gate of Josi’s kindergarten.” He turned to me. “I can only imagine what it’s like to have a child not come home. We failed you on that day. We are doing what we can to put that right.”

His smile—the sadness in it—looked absolutely sincere. And yet . . .

“Can I ask you a question, Ephraim?”

Tvist looked about him. “We are in an informal situation, no?” He waved his hand demonstratively. “Ask away.”

I said, “What if you had information that could have prevented a massacre?”

“Then I would act on that information and prevent the massacre.” Another sincere smile. “What kind of information?”

A Post-it note with a car registration on it, I thought. But this was not the place to show my hand.

When I got home Vee was playing Battle Royale. Her avatar was watching from a high tower, scanning the horizon through the sights of a rifle. Far below, another avatar was jumping. Vee sighted up and pulled the trigger. The avatar below her disappeared mid-jump.

“And . . . head shot,” she said, under her breath.

“Vee, where’s Mum?”

She laughed. “Who ever knows the true answer to that question?”

“So, not home yet?”

She shook her head. “But guess who I found today?”

“Who did you find?”

She put her headset onto her desk, became very serious. “Arno.”

“You . . . what do you mean, you found him?”

She smiled. Her excitement was electric. No sense that she had overstepped a boundary.

“Vee,” I said, “you do know you mustn’t speak to that boy, don’t you?”

“Dad, he knows something, I swear.”

She had gone to Arno’s school; she had followed him home; she had asked him about Licia. Arno had run away. She had followed him for miles.

“Vee,” I said, “I need you to understand that you’re dealing with someone in a fragile emotional state. I had no idea he was even back at school.”

“He was.”

“You cannot approach him. Do you understand me?”

“Sure. But I didn’t.”

“You just told me you did.”

“Fine. I won’t do it again. Sorry I spoke . . .” She looked toward the hall. “There’s the answer to your other question.”

I looked at her. What did she mean?

She said, “You didn’t hear her?”

I listened. I heard Elsa’s shoes drop. I heard her pad toward the kitchen. I found her by the cooker, reading from her phone screen.

“Hey,” I said.

“Hey.”

She looked up, turned her phone over, placed it on the worktop, smiled.